


L'Appel Du Vide

by decathexis



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27674873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decathexis/pseuds/decathexis
Summary: Frank is the sole survivor of a single-vehicle car accident. The "accident" part is just a formality. All the same, now Gerard has gone where he can't follow... or can he?//This one-shot, told from Frank's first person perspective, poses the question of the purpose of death, what happens afterwards, and just how far we're willing to go to see our loved ones once again.//TW: strong thematic discussions of suicide, suicidal ideation, and suicidal thoughts. -- Take care.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	L'Appel Du Vide

Reality seems a little altered when everything is empty and dead. If all the world's a stage, then this must be our intermission. Life has been put on indefinite hold. At this point, I'm not sure we'll even get a second act. 

The autumn air tastes considerably different when it's only my breath filtering in and out. Mother Nature herself seems to have died; her rattling lungs can't be bothered to make the breeze anymore. With every step down this barren road, every withered leaf that shatters beneath my boots, I feel like I'm killing her. But then again, we've been doing that for years now. 

So what makes this time any different?

It's because he's gone.

Every year when autumn dies, his footsteps have been beside me, and we killed time and tradition hand-in-hand. My hand is empty now, cold, numb. I think Mother Nature's holding on to it. She's dying and she wants me to save her. But I couldn't even save him. Hell, I can't even save myself. 

They say that you don't truly miss something until it's gone forever. That's a lie; I missed him when he was going, too. I watched him die from the inside out and there was nothing I could do but plead with Fate and remind myself that he didn't mean any of it. Those were just the desperate words of a dying man. He didn't mean it the first time, or the second, or the third. Besides, the red mark across my cheek was gone by the time I covered the bruises on my arms with the jacket of my only black suit to watch his body go into the ground. And fuck, did I miss him then, too. 

Because he didn't mean it; he was just scared.

Well fucking hell, aren't we all?

The sun hides itself behind pregnant clouds that are only mourning after the fact. Where was this celestial display of funeral garb the day they pulled his body from the lake? From my hospital bed, bathed in synthetic white light, I took Mother Nature's cold winter splendor as a sure sign that he had made it. Fool me once, but never twice. 

Holy shit. I think I'm in love. 

The hours all blend together when, suspended in time, life still seems to go on. For some of us, at least. I don't know where my feeet are taking me, though maybe I have the slightest clue and I won't stop them anyway. I'm too busy counting the acorns littering the sidewalk. They'd be more visible in the grass, too, if the shrivelled old bastard wasn't so dead. Winter deals in grays and browns. It's coming early this year. Autumn is gently (no, not gently, submissively; she's given up, she has no choice) yielding to the throes of the world's great and tragic demise. 

That makes two of us. 

I think time passes but I'm not quite sure. I'm at the lake now and scanning the frigid water for streams of his blood. Imperfect red streamers in the murky gray, he was celebrating because he finally did it. 

I would've gone with him if he'd asked. That's a lie (not it isn't). I went to the very edge with him. We'd danced there one too many times. We'd talked about falling down together. No Icarus, no fallen angels, no fucking wings and nothing beautiful. After all, there was nothing beautiful about his stiff blue corpse. 

Mother Nature heaves a great sigh that scatters the leaves like skittering leaves all around me. Guess she got sick of holding her breath. I can't blame her. As that freezing water flooded my smashed-in car, I couldn't do much better. I breathed in and choked on it. He didn't even flinch. I think he was gone before we even broke through the ice. 

But the lake is still swirling for now in its lazy roundabout way that seemed so much more sinister back when it was swallowing us alive. A few fiery leaves play on its gentle surface. The benches all around are empty. I'm the last survivor. It's a hollow victory at best.

He and I used to sit on the creaky, splintered little swing positioned just so horribly on the shore that it swung our feet over the edge of the lake and made it nearly impossible to get off. It was fine, though; we didn't really want to leave anyway. But we had to eventually, and when we left we always went together. That's just how it was. I guess that's what the ducks did too, because as I hesitantly hover by our old swing, I can't see any other living thing. In a book I read in high school, Holden Caulfield asked where all the ducks go when the lake is all frozen over. I see his bet and raise him this: Why the hell do they leave so early?

Why the hell did he leave me so early?

I know where they all go, of course; feathered things take to heaven one way or another. And they all have to go at once. No man left behind. When he left, he didn't leave behind much of a man, just a scared little boy. That's all I've ever been. That's all I am. 

That's all I'll ever be. 

It isn't a tragedy. That's just what we tell ourselves to lessen to guilt of knowing that we saw and watched and didn't do jack shit. 

I sit out there till night falls. It's a close-fitting blackness that doesn't much care that he's gone. It's Mother Nature averting her eyes so she can have deniability. But I can't do it. I can't follow where he's gone. 

Because it was lovely while it lasted, but we were just two dying stars lost in the ever-expanding darkness, hiding from the unknown in the comfort of an embrace we both knew wouldn't last the night. And I miss him with every fiber of my godforsaken being, but I just can't go. And with the hollow cold eating away at my bones, I realize that he never really wanted me to. He knew I couldn't get better until he was gone; he'd lost all hope in every but me. He'd lost all hope in himself. 

So why does it feel like my chest has been gored open and I'm slowly but surely losing the will to breathe as our swing suspends me in the air out over the lake? What if I never get better? What if I can't without him?

I don't think I'll answer for now. If I think too much I'll drown out the gentle siren song he taught the void to sing for me. 

_C'est la vie._

_C'est la mort._

_C'est l'appel du vide_. 


End file.
